Page 1837 - Week 07 - Tuesday, 22 June 2021
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By encouraging customers to explore more through the scheme and raising awareness of our huge variety and range of amazing small businesses, many have visited a business they may not have otherwise and will have established an ongoing relationship with that business. As one customer noted to me:
It was a great program. I went to a new business last night and chatted to the owner. They said that last week was very stressful for them. But yesterday, the staff knew what to expect, the system was working effortlessly and she was attracting new customers who would not have gone to her store (like myself) if she wasn’t registered with ChooseCBR. I’m going to now be a repeat customer because of their great service.
It is my intention to look into establishing a small business directory to continue to encourage Canberrans to explore their community and find incredible treasures.
I want to finish by addressing some of the commentary that I am aware of. The first is around the targeting of businesses for eligibility in the scheme, including the removal of JobKeeper as a criterion. As I noted earlier, while our economy is performing strongly, there are still businesses which are struggling and there were a range of reasons why businesses did not necessarily receive JobKeeper last year.
We consulted with the Canberra Business Chamber, the AHA and Canberra Women in Business regarding the sectors in determining that they should remain the same, for the reasons I explained earlier. If the sectors had been narrowed from the trial, we undoubtedly would have removed businesses who were still struggling, even if their overall sector may have been improving. In removing JobKeeper more businesses could participate and it gave Canberrans more choice, and these businesses did deserve to participate.
The owners of Herbert’s at Evatt said to me:
We were very happy to be eligible this time round, as you know we opened our doors when the rest of the world was shutting theirs, which consequently made last year an extremely difficult year for us. I am happy to say that we had our best day of trade since we opened which is definitely due to the vouchers.
This has definitely benefited our little business, while we were booked out for most of yesterday, people we couldn’t sit in for dine in, got takeaway and were super impressed and looking forward to coming again. Our beautiful locals and regulars supported us in a way we couldn’t be more thankful for. People that hadn’t heard of us, have now heard of us.
While some franchises chose to participate in the scheme, they are legitimate businesses. They were eligible under the criteria, and it is not up to any person to make an assumption about whether a business was genuinely struggling.
I have also seen commentary regarding the scheme being eligible for New South Wales residents to sign up to. Again, it is worth repeating that this was a business stimulus measure designed so that money was spent in Canberra businesses. Canberra
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